The Angry Birds Movie

For F*** Magazine

THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE 

Director : Fergal Reilly, Clay Kaytis
Cast : Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, Peter Dinklage, Kate McKinnon, Sean Penn, Tony Hale, Keegan-Michael Key, Blake Shelton
Genre : Animation
Run Time : 97 mins
Opens : 26 May 2016
Rating : PG

Red feathers at morning, pigs take warning. In this animated comedy, we become acquainted with Red (Sudeikis), a resident of Bird Island who has trouble keeping his temper in check. After a particularly bad flare-up, Judge Peckinpah (Key) sentences Red to anger management classes. The classes are conducted by Matilda (Rudolph), and Red eventually befriends the jittery Chuck (Gad), Bomb (McBride), prone to literally exploding when he gets upset, and the gigantic, constantly growling Terence (Penn). Out of the blue, Bird Island receives visitors in the form of green pigs, led by Leonard (Hader). Claiming to be peaceful explorers, the newcomers are received with open arms by all of Bird Island’s residents – apart from Red, who harbours his suspicions. Red is proven right when it turns out that the pigs intend to steal and eat all of the birds’ eggs. Red, Chuck and Bomb seek the advice of the Mighty Eagle (Dinklage), a mythical hero whose glory days are far behind him. In retaliation, the denizens of Bird Island stage an attack on Piggy Island to rescue their unborn offspring.

            The Angry Birds Movie is an adaptation of the mobile game developed by Rovio, which became a cultural phenomenon around 5-6 years ago. Beyond the point that this might be flapping its way into theatres a tad late, there is another elephant bird in the room. Large swathes of the internet are convinced that the film is a thinly-veiled anti-immigration screed. It seems far-fetched that a kids’ movie based on a puzzle game might be politicised, but it’s not absurd on its face. The villains are insidious foreigners with a hidden agenda, their leader is sporting a curly beard, they arrive bearing gifts and the promise of peace, and our hero is the one guy who suspects all is not as it seems. Alternatively, it’s an anti-colonialist message, with the pigs as the conquistadors who have arrived to bamboozle the locals and make off with their resources. Naturally, the makers of the film won’t confirm or deny the hypotheses outright. It slingshots right over the heads of the young target audience, but it’s something to mull over – or just chuckle about – all the same.

            Past the possible political commentary, Angry Birds is very much a serviceable, run-of-the-mill animated comedy. There are reasonably well-known comic actors in the voice cast, cloyingly cutesy baby characters, getting-crap-past-the-radar jokes to make the adults snicker, and the inclusion of pop songs aplenty. The birds might be flightless, but a surprisingly high number of the jokes land. Amidst the more questionable gags, like a Fifty Shades of Grey reference and scatological humour, there’s a litany of groan-inducing puns – think “Kevin Bacon in Hamlet”, “Calvin Swine underwear” and “The Birds and the Bees Fertility Clinic”. Screenwriter Jon Vitti is a Simpsons alum who also penned the first two Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, so one kind of knows what to expect jokes-wise. There is a niggling sense that a lot of the jokes were cooked up by a writer’s room of stand-up comics roped in to do a last-minute punch-up. It’s also not terribly original: one scene borrows the “most annoying sound” joke from Dumb and Dumber, while another lifts the Quicksilver kitchen sequence from X-Men: Days of Future Past wholesale.

            Angry Birds may be markedly unsophisticated, but its protagonist does go a good way to making it work. Red is flawed, a bitterly anti-social loner whose deep-seated issues stem from a childhood of neglect (he was orphaned) and bullying. Sudeikis doesn’t phone it in and ends up being pretty engaging as Red, allowing the viewer to sympathise with his myriad frustrations. Gad essentially reprises Olaf from Frozen, while McBride is reasonably cuddly as the gentle giant who just can’t help his outbursts. Dinklage is an absolute hoot as the Mighty Eagle, a widely-admired Wizard of Oz type who turns out to be out of shape and comically ineffectual – wait, the Bald Eagle is the national bird of which country, again?

            Hader could stand to be a little – yes, we’re going there – hammier in his role as the big bad of the piece. Leonard and his fellow pigs want to consume unborn children – it would’ve been interesting to see the movie acknowledge just how dark this is. And hiring Oscar winner Penn to grunt and growl seems even more puzzling than having Vin Diesel’s only lines be “I am Groot”. Penn taped all his, uh, “dialogue” in one recording session and co-director Clay Kaytis openly admits it was stunt-casting. Apparently, the film’s executive producer David Maisel is a friend of Penn’s and reached out to him. Penn, enjoying an early cut of the film (and probably not wanting to pass up the incredibly easy pay cheque), signed on.

            Angry Birds is sufficiently colourful, fast-paced and funny, such that parents won’t be tearing out their hair - though it’s likely they won’t genuinely enjoy it. It is what it is, a franchise-ready animated movie made by committee, and it really could’ve turned out significantly worse.

Summary: It’s an animated movie as ordered via corporate mandate, but The Angry Birds Movie does pack in the jokes and some lively animation. Have meaningful post-movie discussions with your kids about the supposed anti-immigration sentiment in the movie at your own risk.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Rock the Kasbah

For F*** Magazine

ROCK THE KASBAH

Director : Barry Levinson

Cast : Bill Murray, Kate Hudson, Bruce Willis, Zooey Deschanel, Danny McBride, Scott Caan, Arian Moayed, Leem Lubany, Beejan Land

Genre : Comedy

Run Time : 106 mins

Opens : 5 November 2015

Rating : NC16 (Some Drug Use And Coarse Language)

Bill Murray is out to get Afghanistan in the groove in this comedy-drama. Murray plays Richie Lanz, a washed-up rock manager whose glory days are far behind him. When he takes his remaining client Ronnie Smiler (Deschanel) to Afghanistan to perform for American troops, Ronnie abandons him, leaving Richie high and dry, stranded without money and a passport. A seasoned wheeler-dealer, Richie comes into contact with a variety of colourful personalities, including American prostitute Ms. Merci (Hudson), mercenary Bombay Brian (Willis) and cab driver Riza (Moayed). While staying the night as guests of Pashtun elder Tariq Khan (Fahim Fazli), Richie is struck by the remarkable singing voice of Tariq’s daughter Salima (Lubany). Richie makes it his mission to get Salima on the televised singing contest Afghan Star. However, an enormous uphill battle lies ahead of Salima and Richie, as it is forbidden for a Pashtun woman to sing, and doing so is life-threatening. 

Rock the Kasbah takes its name from The Clash’s song Rock the Casbah, though that song doesn’t feature in the film. Richie’s daughter informs him that he won’t find any Kasbahs in Afghanistan; the walled citadels are in North Africa. The premise is ripe for both comedy and drama, but the film’s execution does leave a fair amount to be desired. Director Barry Levinson, working from a screenplay by Mitch Glazer, attempts to gingerly balance the big belly laugh moments with some serious, sensitive thematic elements, and it doesn’t always work. Afghanistan as depicted in Rock the Kasbah plays into all the stereotypes ingrained in western popular culture: rubble is strewn through the streets, bombings are an everyday occurrence, warlords rock up to villages on horseback packing AK-47s, the whole works. At the same time, there are attempts to subvert said stereotypes and the film is dedicated to real-life Afghan Star contestant Setara Hussainzada, a woman who risked her life to pursue her musical dream. 

Rock the Kasbah has something to say, but instead of finding a meaningful way to say it, the film frantically exclaims “look! Bill Murray!” in the hopes that audiences will be more forgiving of anything else because of the film’s star. Rock the Kasbah does play to all of Murray’s strengths as a comedic actor. Richie Lanz is an experienced huckster who claims to have discovered Madonna and is eager to regale anyone with tall tales about rubbing elbows with music’s biggest stars. It’s the “loveable scoundrel” archetype through and through. He mangles Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water while strumming a rubab in front of unamused Pashtun tribal leaders and wakes up tied to the bed in a compromising position after a particularly wild night. Richie Lanz is the brash American abroad who thinks he can talk his way out of anything, and that’s right up Murray’s alley. 

The thing is, this really shouldn’t be a story about Richie Lanz, it should be about Salima Khan, the aspiring songstress. Levinson wants to avoid the standard treacly “fight for your dreams!” angle, even though that story seems like one that can be meaningfully told. Salima is played with quiet dignity and understated vulnerability by Palestinian actress Lubany, who starred in the Oscar-nominated 2013 film Omar. She performs some very pleasant covers of Yusuf Islam (the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens) songs, including Peace Train (this is not a subtle movie), but the focus is never really on Salima’s journey; it’s about how the wily American rock manager who helps her along. Naturally, there are other Afghan characters who are positively portrayed, namely Beejan Land’s charismatic and canny Afghan Star host Daoud Sididi and Arian Moayed’s friendly cab driver/translator Riza, but they all play second fiddle to the American characters. 

Rock the Kasbah is a reasonably star-studded affair, with big(-ish) names brought in to play what essentially are caricatures. Deschanel’s long-suffering Ronnie Smiler is only in this as a plot catalyst, bailing out on Richie after being fed up with her lack of prospects under his management. Willis brings his comedic chops to bear, though we are disappointed that the movie doesn’t reference his blues singer alter ego Bruno Radolini. Hudson seems miscast as the temptress “hooker with a heart of gold”, since she’s more sunny than sultry, but she is better here than in many of the sub-par romantic comedies she’s headlined. Rounding out the cast are Danny McBride and Scott Caan as a pair of con men/arms dealers. They appear to have been inspired by the real-life stoners-turned-gunrunners who are the subjects of the book Arms and the Dudes. 

Entertaining and funny but occasionally misguided, Rock the Kasbah seems afraid to dive into the weighty material at hand in order to avoid alienating audiences, counting on Murray to make everything go down smoother. Rock the Kasbah touches on America’s involvement in Afghanistan and the way woman are treated in the Middle East, but coming at this from a humorous angle is about as tricky as it sounds. 

Summary: Rock the Kasbah leans heavily on the comic presence of its leading man, sometimes at the expense of meaningfully digging into the themes it sets out to shed light on. 

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong